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Don’t break my heart, I want to tell him, but that would be weird, right?

“Can I ask why it matters to you that I go on this trip?” I say.

“Because Positano is part of your story,” he says. “You should go see what it means. If this were a novel, Positano would change your life.”

“If this were a novel, I’d edit that last line out,” I say, our faces just inches apart. “The foreshadowing’s too on the nose.”

Noah smiles his slow, luxurious smile.

“And I would beg you to keep it in,” he says, “at least until you read the last chapter.”

“And I’d say, then you’d better get writing.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Next up is our summer Noa Callaway title,” Patrisse, our marketing director, says into the microphone at Peony’s April sales conference.

It’s been three weeks since Noah and I took our fateful walk in Central Park, three weeks since we landed on the brilliant idea for his eleventh love story. Three weeks of intensely productive writing time—I hope. And three weeks since I started planning my trip to Positano.

My plane tickets are booked. I’m flying into Naples in just over a month. Noa’s Italian publisher is treating me to a suite at Il Bacio hotel, and Bernadette has agreed to give me a few more riding lessons to prepare me for the Amalfi Coast highway.

Noah and I haven’t talked or emailed or played online chess since I left his office that Saturday night, and the silence between us has feltbig. But every time I’ve wanted to reach out to him, I’ve reminded myself of one simple fact: Mylivelihood relies on him turning in this book. We both need him to focus every ounce of his energy on writing fast and strong.

I also didn’t tell him about today’s sales conference. For years, I watched Alix tear her hair out over Noa Callaway’s strong opinions on her presentations, the edits Terry would send—sometimes up until the moment the meeting began. Noa had dogmatic thoughts about everything, from the cover direction to the tagline on the ad campaign, from the distribution of advance reader copies to the phrasing of catalog copy. But until that manuscript is delivered, Noah needs to tunnel his vision on Edward and Elizabeth’s love story.

In the meantime, I’ll handle the rest.

Up at the podium, Patrisse’s clicker isn’t working, so the PowerPoint presentation stays stuck on the previous slide—the glossy, fully designed cover for a new book calledThe Bed Trick. It’s one of Emily Hines’s big summer titles, and the in-house buzz is buzzy.

When Patrisse finally advances the slideshow, the contrast is stark. All of Peony’s upper management division now stares at a white screen with simple black font that reads only:

CALLAWAY TITLE AND COVER TO COME.

My stomach drops. My thinking had been that this is Noa’s eleventh book with Peony. We are literally pros at publishing Noa Callaway by now. Our robust Callaway marketing and publicity plans are well-oiled machines, tweaked only slightly each year, based on the content or theme of the new book. I’d hoped I could ride on Noa’s previous coattails today, even with little actual material to show the team.

That might have been true... if this book weren’t alreadyalmost six months late. I see now the doubt in my colleagues’ faces. I see they fear the worst—about the manuscript, and about my role in publishing it.

I feel them turning to look at me. Even Meg is grimacing. When Alix was editorial director, we always had a title, a fantastic cover, and an edited manuscript by the time sales conference rolled around.

I’ve delivered sales conference materials for all four of my other titles on our summer list. I’ve approved the plans for the books of my entire team. I am not an abject failure! Only a failure with the one book that everyone’s actually counting on.

Aude had been horrified by the paucity of Noa Callaway materials I’d given her to distribute before today’s meeting. She’d muttered in French for half the morning. I kept hearing the worddisgrâce. Maybe Aude should have become Noa’s editor—maybe she’d have excised the manuscript from him already.

“We know Lanie will get the manuscript out of Noa... eventually,” Patrisse says at the podium, and the room laughs uneasily. “Until then, we’re moving forward with our standard, successful plans for marketing Noa’s books across all platforms. Let’s consider this a developing story, shall we? Unless Lanie has news for us?”

My chair squeaks as I stand up. This wasn’t planned, but I can’t walk out of my first sales conference as an editorial director looking like I don’t know what’s going on with our company’s biggest book. I’ve been running through my conversation with Noah on the Gapstow Bridge for weeks. I remember everything he said.

“We have a working title,” I announce on a whim, lockingeyes with a suddenly perked-up Sue. “Two Thousand Picnics in Central Park.”

I know as soon as it’s passed my lips that it’s a knockout title. There are murmurs in the conference room.

“I can run with that,” Brandi, our cover designer, says, making notes in her tablet. “With Callaway’s name on the cover, it sells itself.”

“It’s going to be a very special book,” I promise the room. “It’s a love story spanning fifty years. And the characters?” I smile, picturing Edward and Elizabeth holding hands across their picnic table. “They’re incredible.”

“When are we getting the manuscript?” Sue asks, knowing I can’t dodge the question in front of the whole company.

“May fifteenth,” I say as confidently as I can.Just in time to keep my promotion.